Moscow (Sputnik) Jul 10, 2015
Export revenue will help the Russian space industry ease its budget expenditures on modernization, Roscosmos head Igor Komarov said Tuesday.
“One of the state corporation’s goals that was set by the government was the decrease of budget expenditures by increasing export potential of space production. We are now working on export that will allow us to decrease budget expenditures in reformiFull article

First, a reprise: In April, the budget staff gave Council a
preliminary forecast, featuring the big numbers that might be expected
if the local economy continued to chug briskly along. They included a
jump in real estate values (a median home valuation of $221,000, up from
$202,000 last year), about a 5-6% increase in the General Fund
(operating expenses) to $904 million, and an estimated $18/month
increase in overall property taxes and fees (about $217 annually on that
same median home). Today we’ll begin to find out how close those
numbers approach FY 2016 reality – pending Council review and adjustment
or confirmation.

There are also a couple of new wild cards in the mix. Council has already approved a 6% homestead exemption
on property taxes (the first step toward an eventual 20% exemption); in
combination with the $5,000 flat exemption enacted by the previous
Council, that’s estimated to cost about $7.6 million at the outset. The
second complicating factor is a consequence of the city’s brief face-off
with the Travis Central Appraisal District over commercial valuations. Although the city’s protest was formally withdrawn – to be diverted to state district court – Deputy Chief Financial Offic­er Ed Van Eenoo
says that the certified appraisal numbers that are normally available
at the end of July won’t be ready this year until late August, and could
in theory wobble a bit because of protests and other factors.

This will be the first budget review by the new 10-1 Council, and the
more conservative members have vowed to be a countervailing force
against rising city costs. Although Mayor Steve Adler proposed
adjusting the property tax rate upward to pay for the new homestead
exemption, some CMs are pushing back. For example, District 6 Council
Member Don Zimmer­man, the self-designated “most fiscally conservative” CM, has said he’d rather cut city management, and District 8’s Ellen Trox­clair
has pledged to advocate the “effective” tax rate – that is, the rate
that would bring in the same revenue as last year, plus new
construction. (Both have proposed sharply reduced raises for city
staff.) Earlier in the year, budget staff estimated that taxing at the
effective rate would mean a budget gap – income against costs – of
roughly $30 million.

Zimmerman had an answer for that too, telling the Statesman
last week that if Aus­tin needs more cops, it might require fewer
librarians – he’s been strongly critical of the new Downtown library and
its projected staffing, repeatedly suggesting that smartphones have
made libraries obsolete. Whether he and his colleagues can find $30
million – which would mean not just eliminating Downtown library staff,
but city libraries altogether – remains to be seen.

{crazy!!!} this can’t happen!! #NCbred #Repost @sisterswithbeauty with @repostapp.
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Need repost love on this #RIGHTNOW.. Truly love @rachelstewartjewelry and her art that hangs in my home.. She is a creative and should not have to fight to be what she is.. But today we need to spread the word.. #Piracy won’t win.. Not today. Please read and share. BY @koilsbynature via @RepostWhiz app:
Thank You @tribecalledcurl
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#TribeTalk: After 8 years of selling #handcrafted jewelry online, @rachelstewartjewelry may have to shut down because of rampant piracy. It’s a scary reality that many small business owners face. It compromises one’s livelihood and financial future. These online copycats, housed on sites like #Alibaba & #AliExpress copied her exact designs and even stole product shots that Rachel took of the pieces and even the models. This goes beyond saving a few coins. It’s a direct attack on Black #entrepreneurship, and we should all be concerned. “Before we complain about the high prices of our local Black business, remember that nobody complains about the high prices of these French #labels. Rappers don’t shout out Black-owned designers unless it’s their own line. People can help by holding indie designers up as the must-have items instead of already established #fashion houses that really don’t want your business in the first place,” says Rachel to @the.root. Please join us in condemning this #piracy, and supporting Black businesses. Shout out your favorite Black-owned businesses below ⬇⬇⬇#smallbusinessowners #Blackbusinesses #RachelStewart #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #BlackCulture #revenue #income #jewelry #accessories #onlineshopping #Blackowned #TribeCalledCurl #blackbizscope #iSupportRachelStewart
(#RepostWhiz app)

For the quarter ending Jan. 30, HP reported revenue of $26.8 billion, a fall of 5 percent from a year ago. Net earnings were $1.4 billion, down 4 percent. Using nonstandard accounting popular in the tech business, per-share earnings were 92 cents.

The revenue numbers were worse than expected in a survey of Wall Street analysts by Thomson Reuters. They thought HP’s revenue would be $27.3 billion. Per-share were 91 cents.

What’s insane isn’t HP’s poor performance, it’s that not even four years ago, HP was bringing in roughly double the revenue of Apple. HP was still the king of tech in this regard. Now Apple is doingalmost three times the revenue of HP on a quarterly basis.

With regard to earnings, Apple is roughly 13 times ahead. Yes, thirteen. With HP about to split into two separate companies, this is one of the last times such a comparison will be simple to do. And it’s crazy.

During an interview last year, popular games website Giantbomb asked me what I thought of the state of the industry. I responded that everything is fine – used in that way where every good friend would know not to ask again. We’re not fine.

I’ve been told by friends wiser than myself to always add nuance to
such a sweeping statement. Individual developers might be fine, certain
segments of the industry might be fine, in fact – entire platforms might
be doing well. But as an industry, I don’t think we’re fine.

Every segment of our industry has gloomy news for us. In mobile, user
acquisition has never been as expensive as it is today – with the cost
of ‘acquiring a quality user’ now often exceeding the revenue such a
user brings in on average. The giants of this industry deal with ever
increasing costs, and ever decreasing willingness to buy a sixty dollar
game. The aspiring developers of today need to shout louder than swarms
of no longer aspiring developers to get noticed at all.

Most major platforms have been pushing for independent development to
be featured in a bigger way, but that helped as much as it backfired.
While the developers that were gaining momentum in 2010 are still
gaining momentum, what do you do about the developers that started last
year? As platform developer relation teams reached their maximum
capacity, they locked down or opened up – both with the exact same
effect. The idea that either a choice for democratic curation or a
choice for tightly controlled platforms will somehow fix the fact that
there are more games being made than ever feels like a feigned hope.

“St. Louis, MO — A report conducted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch posed the question, “What happens when municipalities have no financial incentive to write tickets?”

They found that the answer was quite simple; they don’t write very many tickets.

Pulling someone over for not wearing their seat belt and extorting money from them serves no purpose other than to generate revenue for the state. Many police officers know that much of their job is to collect revenue. It’s now apparent, that when given the option to conduct extortion or not, they will choose the latter.

Consider Madison County. In the Land of Lincoln, speeding and other traffic infractions are state violations. Municipalities get very little revenue from the tickets.

In 2013, police in Madison County wrote just 17 tickets per 100 residents, about half the rate of Missouri and about one-quarter of the rate of St. Louis County.

In Ferguson, traffic citations make up the second largest stream of revenue for the city. It’s blatantly obvious that the citizens of Ferguson are little more than host to a parasitic revenue collection racket that poses as a “justice system.”

Extorting people for victimless crimes to pay the $200,000 salaries of city officials is quite the opposite of “justice” and nothing close to “protecting and serving.”

It’s easy for the city officials to sit back from the safety of their plush offices and watch the revenue pour in while they send their badged grunts to extort the masses. However, many of these badged grunts hate doing it.

The Free Thought Project spoke to a police officer, who wishes to remain anonymous. He explains the revenue collection scheme as follows:

It’s easy to write tickets all day. Everyone speeds, and at night, everyone on the roads after 10:00 pm has probably been drinking. While there isn’t an official quota system in place, if we don’t pull people over and write tickets and make DUI arrests, we are essentially derelict in our duty. It sucks, none of us want to pull people over and write them a ticket, but we have to.

When cops write fewer tickets, they can devote their time to preventing and solving actual crimes. The police in Carbondale, Illinois took this approach.

The citizens of Carbondale are happy about this change, but the city officials who are losing their profits have turned to fear-mongering. Carbondale city-council woman, Jane Adams, admits that people don’t like getting tickets but claims that it lets “bad guys slip through the cracks.”

“There’s a tremendous amount of speeding. We have lots of young people, and we have lots of people who come in and have outstanding warrants for very serious crimes,” Adams tells WSLI News.

Carbondale thinks that its a win win to shakedown and extort the public. Creating criminals out of otherwise innocent people by forcing police to collect revenue can fill the city’s coffers while simultaneously catching the occasional “bad guy.”

This type of policing is great for Jane Adams, who sits back in her plush, taxpayer purchased office chair and barks orders to increase revenue so she can finally get that office view she’s always dreamed of.

Facebook Beats Second-Quarter Revenue Estimates, But Stock Falls On High Spending
Expectations were high for Facebook going into second quarter results, and the social media giant’s revenue didn’t disappoint. However, an 82% jump in spending weighed on the stock, which fell as much as 3.6% in…

If you’re driving through Marietta, Georgia, and encounter men who appear to be conducting a road survey, all might not be what it seems.

The guy wearing a yellow vest and hardhat might have a bulletproof vest and a badge underneath. The Marietta Police Department has some officers posing as construction workers or road surveyors to catch people who are texting while driving or using their phones in any other distracting manner.

Taking advantage of a pocket trip and room on the far turn left by a fading Bourbon Bay, Skates N Plates ($29.60) pounced late to just collar Six Bax in Saturday (August 1) evening’s $14,000 Open Trot at the harness racing meeting at Tioga Downs.
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